by, Lesa Seibert, President, Xstreme Media
In the first installment of this series, we looked at how to choose a video format. This week we are going to look at Viral Videos and how they work.
Sunglasses-maker Ray Ban has created a site on YouTube called Never Hide Films, where they post videos including sensations like "Cow Gives Birth to Dude" and "Guy Has Glasses Tattooed to Face". The most popular one so far is "Sunglass Catch", has hit 5 million view. By watching these videos, you will see what many viral videos have in common:
In the first installment of this series, we looked at how to choose a video format. This week we are going to look at Viral Videos and how they work.
Sunglasses-maker Ray Ban has created a site on YouTube called Never Hide Films, where they post videos including sensations like "Cow Gives Birth to Dude" and "Guy Has Glasses Tattooed to Face". The most popular one so far is "Sunglass Catch", has hit 5 million view. By watching these videos, you will see what many viral videos have in common:
- Viral videos show something new or never seen before. This means that exactly replicating a viral video is impossible. The person or people shown in the video have to be doing something so unexpected that the viewer will be caught off guard and feel compelled to pass the video along.
- The video can imitate the types of videos that go viral. For instance, the "Sunglass Catch" video is similar to other homemade videos where basketball players or skateboarders do more and more outrageous stunts as the video progresses. Look at several different viral videos and see if you can imitate teh types of things that are shown, if not the exact actions.
- A good firal video lies on the border between real and unbelievable. The more gullible will be shocked and will pass it on. But even more discerning viewers will pass it along because they think other people have been fooled by it, and want to correct them. The sunglasses tattoo video left many people, including news outlets, questioning its accuracy. Even though it is clearly on Ray Ban's site, commenters on YouTube still wonder if it is real.
- The video should look authentically homemade. There are many high-budget ads that get passed around as viral videos, but with enormous budgets like some have, the benefit of going viral is minimal. A good viral video will use its low budget as an asset. The lack of visual richness will help to blur the boundary between real and unreal.
- Having a place where viewers can easily connect the video back to other parts of your marketing plan is crucial. Ray Ban's "Never Hide" tagline helps in this regard, but the fact that Ray Ban curates these videos on a single site is also important. Ray Ban also takes down copies of their advertisement from other posters so the connection to their home site is not diluted.
- Most viral videos fail. Of the twenty videos on the Never Hide site, only four have reached one million viewers. You must be prepared to try a lot of things before you will find something that works.
